When stripping wax or other floor finish from tile floors and the like, a very harsh floor finish stripper is used. The harsh stripping properties of such stripers are not confined to floor finishes, but also remove finishes from and damage other objects. Since the stripper is a fluid it will spread across an open area if unconfined, and can easily seep under the gap beneath a closed door. These floor finish strippers have a harmful effect on rugs and carpets and can cause permanent discoloration.
During the application of finish stripper to a tile floor it is necessary to apply the stripper all the way up to entrances of adjoining rooms, some of which may contain carpeting. While stripping the floor in the vicinity of adjoining rooms it is very difficult to prevent the stripper from running under doors into the adjoining rooms and damaging the floor or carpeting in the entranceway. When finish stripper is applied with a machine, such as in industrial applications, the machine has a tendency to splash the stripper up onto doors and other vertical objects. Further, it is sometimes desirable to remove a floor's finish from a particular section of floor not bounded by vertical barriers such as walls or doors. In this situation there are no barriers to confine the floor finish stripper from flowing onto adjacent floor areas and removing the finish from those sections of floor.